After the Fall, by Nancy Owen Nelson

The Source of the Loue, by Gustave Courbet (France) 1864

After the Fall
 
The Loue runs underground, birthed from dark
cave, shadows large and lurking, boulders
 
mirrored in murky water below. It is 
the way of things, this dark water, this
 
blackness, this cave which surrenders 
its bleak reality untainted by lush
 
landscapes. Courbet saw it, this accouchement
he knew, saw its truth black as oil beneath
 
the surface. Did he dive into that black hell? 
Did he ever see sun glinting off water, or
 
Van Gogh’s, Monet’s blues and purples,
Gauguin’s bronze bodies, lying abed,
 
spread lushly by blue waters, oranges
and yellows, reds awash with sun glow?
 
Or was he forever le desespere?[1]Of late
I have seen such a face, a desperate man
 
fraught with demons, his own journey
into bowels of soul. His return uncertain. 

Nancy Owen Nelson
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[1] Courbet’s self-portrait, “The Desperate Man.”
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Nancy Owen Nelson is the author of Divine Aphasia: a Woman's Search for her Father, and other books.